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I don't understand how anyone in good conscience can vote against this tax. As a reminder, this tax does not affect income under a million US dollars. From the

• changoplatanero 7mo ago
  I think you can in good conscious be opposed to new taxes. This tax is being introduced in a way that only affects the most privileged portion of the population but that's how the Federal income tax was introduced many years ago too. People who oppose the tax are looking forward to a future where the tax burden in Washington might be as oppressive as it is in California or New York.
  • ambicapter 7mo ago
    States with massive, growing populations? Must not be as oppressive as stated.
    • cma256 7mo ago
      Both California and New York have shrinking populations according to Wikipedia. And even if the estimates are wrong and they do have growing populations you still need to consider the fact that the Southern states are growing much faster. Federal power is shifting south. If you like the politics of New York and California that's a long-term problem that needs to be resolved.
      • ambicapter 7mo ago
        California has a "Neutral Decrease" in population and New York has a "Neutral Increase" according to Wikipedia. I'm gonna go with the 5 year trendline, which is up. > And even if the estimates are wrong Nice, covering all your bases. > Southern states are growing much faster Yeah, smaller states grow faster than larger ones.
        • cma256 7mo ago
          I'm talking specifically about this phenomena[1]. I wasn't agreeing with the GP that these policies are "oppressive". I'm only informing you that these states are not experiencing "explosive growth" and the downstream effects of that fact. 1. https://thearp.org/blog/apportionment/2030-apportionment-forecast-2025/ https://thearp.org/blog/apportionment/2030-apportionment-for...
        • pc86 7mo ago
          You'll have a much better time here if you take others' arguments with the assumption that they're made in good faith.
      • verdverm 7mo ago
        CA and NY are both expected to lose 4 seats next census, based on current trends. Saw this in an HN submissions yesterday about gerrymandering and how it might be a losing strategy for Dems looking out into the 2030s.
    • jobs_throwaway 7mo ago
      California and New York are the opposite of growing, and Washington thus far hasn't taxed anyone, so this statement makes no sense
    • deleted 7mo ago
      [deleted]
    • hagbard_c 7mo ago
      Let's not quibble over the population growth rates of these states which provide welfare to everyone. Instead, let's talk about te tax base which provides this welfare and you'll notice that tax base does not grow nearly as fast and might in fact be shrinking - actual reliable numbers are hard to come by. How many of the newcomers to these states will end up being net providers to the tax base and how many will end up being net consumers? If you provide more benefits, more people will come. If you raise the net tax rates to provide those benefits to a growing number of consumers more net payers will leave. The total population may remain the same or may even grow but a larger fraction of that total population will never become net providers, remaining net consumers. What is the end game here? This is a question which has already been answered in many European countries with similarly structured social benefit systems. There the end game is called 'austerity measures', the reduction of state services to keep the state from getting even deeper in debt. A cynical take on this situation is that the current crop of politicos in these states launch these ever-increasing benefit systems in the knowledge that this attracts voters from a few segments of the population as well as 'future voters' who will move to these places because they promise to provide them with (more) benefits than their current domiciles. Once the costs of the whole system become too high the system will no longer be tenable but the current crop of politicos will by that time have moved on to greener pastures, probably golf courses in some nice shielded and guarded areas. The 'other party' will end up winning the elections after having been out of power for a long time but this will end up being a Pyrrhic victory since they inherit a state on the verge of financial collapse. OK, they say, "we need to fix this mess and the only way to achieve that is to cut spending because we can not raise taxes above where they've been raised by our predecessors" - in fact this promise was one of the factors which made them win the elections. They do just that, lower benefits, lower some taxes - but not that much because they do need money to pay off all those debts and all the running contracts entered by their predecessors - and they manage to pull the state away from the brink of financial ruin. At the next election round the party which put in place all those benefit programs portrays the current incumbents as "inhumane penny-pushers who only want to appease the rich" with organised - and paid - protests by all the right groups, long media campaigns about the threat of *-ism and *-phobia, the works. The current incumbents try to defend their record stating that they're just cleaning up the mess left by the previous leadership who are financially irresponsible spendthrifts but that message is not nearly as emotionally appealing as the video clips of poor single mothers who now have less to feed their poor children, about the cancelled school trips because the state no longer had the funds to pay for them. The elections are won by the party which put in place the programs which nearly bankrupted the state, the new leadership undoes part of what the previous leadership did to save the state from financial ruin and as a result the process is set to repeat in a few years. Enough years at least to make sure they get to retire to greener pastures, probably golf courses in nice shielded and guarded neighbourhoods. They don't have to worry about such silly things as financial responsibility, they know they can get the other side to clean up the mess and they also know they'll be able to use the measures the others need to take to clean up the mess to launch a campaign against them which is nearly sure to regain them the leadership in one or two election cycles. As the label on the shampoo bottle says: rinse, repeat.
• drdec 7mo ago
  The first set of US federal tax rates when it was allowed by the 16th amendment with adjustments for inflation on the the right: Orig Income Rate Adj Income (2025 Dollars) Up to $20,000 1% Up to $600,000 $20,000 to $50,000 2% $600,000 to $1,500,000 $50,000 to $75,000 3% $1,500,000 to $2,250,000 $75,000 to $100,000 4% $2,250,000 to $3,000,000 Over $100,000 5% Over $3,000,000 The point being that once you allow the tax, it has a tendency to become more and more. It's much easier to raise income tax than establish it. I don't have a dog in this fight and if it's what the people of Washington want, so be it. (edited for formatting
  • pc86 7mo ago
    This is important context, and people forget that "taxation without representation," which started a war, was about a tax of about 1.5%. Why is it when people are against a tax they typically talk about it in terms of historical context, unintended consequences, interstate migration, while people in favor of the tax almost exclusively appeal to emotional blackmail statements like "paying your fair share" (when something like 40% of the country pays no federal income tax whatsoever) or "good conscience" or assume anyone with any money got it through borderline illegal activities?
    • mothballed 7mo ago
      It took 100+ years of horribly repressive policies to start that war, including far worse tax schemes including things like straight up requiring burning half your tobacco or only selling it through monopolized channels that required paying tariffs to England before it could be re-exported anywhere else. Policies that resulted in mass starvation and death, sometimes resulting in failed rebellions (like Bacon's). So there's history of Americans being willing to spend decades starving to death to pay high taxes or economically destructive policies before they will successfully rebel against it.
      • pc86 7mo ago
        Well we're decades in at this point.
• orionsbelt 7mo ago
  It’s a beachhead that will expand. The history of income taxes shows that. Once you have established an income tax, the next fight will be to raise it, or lower the income limit, and over years, it will end up covering everyone. The government is incentivized to over spend and then try to dig their way out be expanding taxes, but there is a limit to what you can tax. You want people to vote for a millionaire tax tie it with a constitutional amendment that requires a higher vote bar to ever increase it and have all numbers automatically inflation adjusted
  • kimbernator 7mo ago
    If that means curbing the comparatively high consumption taxes in WA, then it's for the best. The lowest income brackets pay an outrageous percentage of their income to taxes compared to the upper brackets because of them.
    • JumpCrisscross 7mo ago
      > If that means curbing the comparatively high consumption taxes “Most of the roughly $4 billion a year the tax would bring it would be devoted to the state’s general-fund budget to pay for government agencies and services. A 5% chunk would be earmarked for early education and child care. Democrats also say they’d use some of the money to fund free school lunch and breakfast for all kids in K-12 schools, though Republicans pointed out that money is not legally earmarked in the income tax bill. ADVERTISING Skip Ad Skip Ad Skip Ad The bill would also exempt more businesses from paying the state’s business and occupation tax. It also would eliminate the sales tax on purchases of diapers, and personal hygiene products such as toothpaste, antiperspirants and shampoo. It also would expand the state’s Working Families Tax Credit, which sends annual rebates of up to $1,300 a year to lower-income working families. Ferguson had pushed for the expansion of the program and said the revised bill would make 460,000 households eligible for the payments.” TL; DR It’s not materially curbing the sales tax.
    • jandrewrogers 7mo ago
      There are no plans to reduce consumption taxes in any meaningful way. This is one of the reasons so many Democrats are against it. This new tax regime makes no attempt to improve the tax structure or reduce taxes for anyone.
• NDizzle 7mo ago
  [flagged]
  • unethical_ban 7mo ago
    Republicans in Harris County sold voters on the Beltway 8 toll road in the 80s based on the idea that when the bonds were paid off the tolls would go away. Clever hack: they never stopped issuing bonds. At least they've made it really easy for them to take your money. You don't need a toll tag, they'll scan your license plate, mail you, and charge you extra for mailing you. No coins needed.
• monocularvision 7mo ago
  If you are truly incapable of even imagining the objections (that you might disagree with!) you should probably get out of your bubble and expand the content you consume.
• BeetleB 7mo ago
  > I don't understand how anyone in good conscience can vote against this tax. For all the reasons you can vote against any tax. Taxation is not the default. The justification always has to come from the proponents. And I say this as a pro tax person who has voted for more taxes and lives in a high income tax state.
  • qup 7mo ago
    I say they get plenty of money already. The amount of fraud and grift is incredible anytime tax money is being spent. Defense contractors, road works, entitlement fraud, politicians' unexplainable wealth, college tuition, learing centers, and the list goes on. Manage the money properly.
    • collabs 7mo ago
      The time to talk about these things is when we spend them, not when we need to pay for them though. Logically speaking, the solution is clear going forward: 1. Higher taxes 2. Reduced government spending However, we are not willing to have these difficult conversations and are focused on appeasing people. Also, lets put things in context -- here is a summary from Claude. Over the last decade, federal income taxes went down for nearly everyone in rate terms, but the percentage benefit was larger for high earners and corporations.
      • senordevnyc 7mo ago
        Disagree. Why trust someone with more money when they haven’t proven they can avoid squandering what they have?
      • garbawarb 7mo ago
        Another option is to increase the tax base. Washington has had high population growth this century which has been great for revenues.
• thewebguyd 7mo ago
  > As a reminder, this tax does not affect income under a million US dollars. For now. The legislature refused to add an amendment forbidding the threshold from ever being lowered to guarantee that it only applies to a million and above. The way the Washington state constitution works is income is treated as property, and property taxes must be uniform. So this bill isn't just a millionaire's tax, it's a state-wide income tax of 9.9% with the first million exempt. It's a good thing, for now, but it does set precedent and the fact they refused to add language to the bill forbidding that exemption from every being removed or lowered is telling. The income threshold will eventually be lowered.
  • alkonaut 7mo ago
    > The legislature refused to add an amendment forbidding the threshold from ever being lowered Wouldn't such a change have to be made by the same legislature with a similar majority? Or was this some sort of constitutional change that required a more qualified majority, after which the threshold can be changed more easily than this could be introduced? The WA constitution doesn't seem to have anything to say on income tax, just a lot about property tax?
    • thewebguyd 7mo ago
      > Wouldn't such a change have to be made by the same legislature with a similar majority? Yes. The legislature voted on the additional language and it did not pass. > The WA constitution doesn't seem to have anything to say on income tax, just a lot about property tax? Washington state treats income as property, and property taxes must be uniform and flat within a specific property class. Technically, this law does run afoul of that because having an exemption makes it not uniform, and per the state constitution property tax is capped at a total aggregate levy of 1% per year. The state will use the argument that this is not a property tax, but an excise tax on the privilege of earning high income from the state's economy. They used a similar argument for the capital gains tax, and won in the WA supreme court.
      • alkonaut 7mo ago
• rayiner 7mo ago
  > I don't understand how anyone in good conscience can vote against this tax Then you have intellectual blinders on. There’s good reasons to have broad based taxes instead of singling out rich people. In Sweden, for example, the top tax bracket kicks in at 1.5x the median income. In Germany, the second highest 42% bracket kicks in around 70,000 euros and the top 45% bracket kicks in at 277,000 euros. None of the countries that American liberals admire in terms of having a robust welfare state adopt a policy of “soak the rich.” The have policies based on solidarity where everyone in the top half or third take on a heavy tax burden.
  • SecretDreams 7mo ago
    The income disparity between Germany and California is gargantuan as you approach the top percentiles. In the 1%, average income in Germany is 272k usd. In California, it's north of 1mil usd. At 0.1%, it's 1.1 mil usd in Germany and 3.2+ mil in California. The distributions between high and low income earners are much flatter in Germany because it is harder to abuse the system to get to such salaries. No so in America. Hence Germany also does not need such aggressive taxation schemes as what's proposed (they also have way more flat taxes as well).
    • rayiner 7mo ago
      You’re comparing to California, but we’re talking about this proposed Washington tax. California’s tax schedule is actually much more like Germany’s than this proposed Washington income tax. In California, the big jump comes at $72,000, where the 9.3% rate kicks in. The $742,000 rate is only a little higher, at 12.3%. That’s similar to Germany where 42% kicks in at 70,000 euros (top 15%) and the top rate is only a little higher at 45%.
      • SecretDreams 7mo ago
        California and WA are similar in income distributions to what I quoted. Seattle is more extreme. Very affluent at the top. Can't comment how total tax in Germany might compare to the current discussion.
• jandrewrogers 7mo ago
  Washington is a one-party State where not even Democrats trust the Democrats on tax issues. Many Democrats object to it in principle because the new income tax is unconstitutional on its face; they support an income tax but ignoring the constitution because it is inconvenient and blocking people from voting on it is gross. The supreme court in Washington won't be any help, they are have an unfortunate track record of rubberstamping whatever the party wants. This is in addition to many years of tax increases exceeding growth, the regular introduction of new poorly designed taxes that are simultaneously wasted and expanded with no accountability. Many Democrats fully expect a rugpull is coming because that is the recent history in Washington. Regressive taxes are never lowered or removed, they just stack new ones on top of them.